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Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Ballard On Being A Whore For The Billionaire Sports Team Owners

Mayor Greg Ballard sits for an interview with the Star's Dan Lee on the role of sports in the city--one that will really turn your stomach sick if you have any concern that our city has become a big whore for the billionaire sports team owners. Well, you won't find a bigger whore for the Pacers and the Colts than Ballard. Although candidate Greg Ballard said three years ago that he thought our city was putting too much emphasis on helping out the sports teams, he's singing an entirely different tune today. Here's a few items from the interview:

On the Simons' extortionist-like demand that the City either pick up $18 million a year in maintenance costs for Conseco Fieldhouse or see the team move to another city, Ballard is reaching down to his knees. "Everybody wants a long-term deal done now," he says. "Everybody knows the Pacers have been going through a rough patch." "The business community wants this to happen." The Pacers bring us "international prestige." He says he's "confident" a "deal will get done", though it might be a short-term bridge agreement. This means the CIB plans to borrow the full $27 million from the state authorized by last year's bailout legislation to give the Simons at least $9 million a year for now.

On the Super Bowl, he's not worried about a collective bargaining agreement failing to be reached with the NFL Players Association, which could jeopardize the City's opportunity to host the 2012 Super Bowl. He tells Dan Lee what he expects the City to gain from hosting the Super Bowl: (1) a world class image (didn't the Indianapolis 500 give us that decades ago?); (2) prosperity for the near east side (LOL); and (3) attract new businesses to the City (yeah, there he goes with phony job claims again).

On the demise of the tennis center, he says it's "unfortunate", but we still have the Veladrome he quickly adds.

His favorite sports moment is sitting in the war room with the Pacers management during the NBA draft.

Anyone who has observed Ballard since he became mayor understands how easily he can be bought by giving him free courtside tickets to sporting events, plenty of buffet spreads in the suites at Conseco Fieldhouse and Lucas Oil Stadium, gifts for him and Winnie, jobs for his kids, free country club memberships and lots of overseas and out-of-town junkets. He's sort of like former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in that sense but with even less class. The corrupt insiders with whom he's become so comfy laugh at him behind his back all the time. They know he is incapable of studying issues and reaching independent decisions. He relies on these people to supply him with BS he can spit out like a parrot on command to the common people. Unlike a parrot, though, he steps all over the words he's fed, looking and sounding like a child who suffers from a learning disability. The man has become such an embarrassment. I really believe he is so stupid that he could well become the first mayor to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar and sent to prison. You can bet the corrupt insiders would kick him to the curb now that they've gotten him to do every corrupt deal they put on his desk just like the political insiders have done to Blagojevich in Illinois.

The guy is unbelievable. I remember Ballard talking about our overemphasis on sports and criticizing subsidies. And now here how he's talking. I'd love to get a tape of Candidate Ballard criticizing the sports subsidies.

I saw that, Jon. There is no attempt on the part of the Star to allow any balance in the discussion of this issue on its editorial pages. That's about the fifth time in the past several weeks that it has printed a featured column by people promoting more subsidies for the Pacers; not a single similar column has been permitted for the people who oppose it. I don't understand why anyone would want to join the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce when that Roland Dorson advocates tax after tax to fund downtown-related activities. He is the most anti-business advocate in the City as far as I'm concerned. He continually advocates for public policies that harm most businesses in this city.

Wow, Gary. When campaigning for his lowness, did it even cross your mind that three years later, you would be writing such an insulting headline about him? ?Not that you do (or should) care, but whatever must Ballard think about this turn of events, lol?

No, I didn't Marycatherine. It is the greatest disappointment since I began participating in the political process back in the 1980s. I've never witnessed a politician change his stripes so dramatically after taking office, and so quickly for that matter. He had a blank slate and you took him at his work. As several disappointed former Marines who supported Ballard have told me, Semper Fi is not taken very seriously by Ballard.

In other news, sorry I can't remember the source, the estimated financial impact of the Super Bowl in Indianapolis is guesstimated at about 112 million dollars. Wasn't the number quoted by the NFL and others somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 million?

There is a lot higher rate of AWOL and desertions in the Marine Corps than the public realizes. According to the government statistics graphed in SOLDIERS IN REVOLT, by David Cortwright, from the years 1966-1973, compared to the Army, Navy, and Air Force, it had the highest rates of both. Oh well, maybe Ballard will change, for the better. Miracles can happen, eh.

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